Fairwells

Fumes, Fun & FarewellsJaclyn RossIt’s our final week here in Quiet Waters and it has been a pretty relaxed week, (compared with most of the weeks we’ve made it through so far).It began with us adding extra table tops to the crib kitchen. We had our plan, even a simple diagram of our plan and we were all set to go, until Seb came around the corner and started, quite happily I might add, handing out some “constructive” criticism, which resulted in a plan B…On one of the bright and crisp mornings, on our way to a rather tough gym session there happened to be a Red-eyed Dove calling in the tree above us. Seb, always the teacher, decided to test our knowledge of this feathery creature and asked what bird it was, our dear Nola boldly states “isn’t that a Red Spotted Day Owl” at which we all burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter.We were then set the task of doing a little landscaping in front of our tents as the gardens there were in some need of a little TLC. So off we went to locate some rocks for our gardens and then we arranged them how we thought we wanted them, however, as usual our trusty critic appeared and all our designs got quickly changed. Only after our plots were up to Seb standard were we allowed to put some plants in them. These we acquired from Mrs Randle’s pulchritudinous garden, and they just happened to be about the only plant that can grow green in this desert oasis — aloes.We were then taught how to be plumbers by Simon. He showed us how to fix a few taps, unblock a drain, join a couple of pipes and solder some copper pipes together (thankfully nobody got soldered to their piece with the fittings). In the evening we went up to the Randles’ house for a cultured evening of wine tasting.On Wednesday we were all piled onto the bus to go and see Mrs Randle’s family dairy farm. While we were there, we also met Frances, who owns the Jacarandells wooden utensil business and we helped her put some liquid paraffin on some chopping boards to help complete one of her orders. After our farm tour in the afternoon, we went for some rather entertaining dancing lessons which had us all in fits of laughter…The next day we had a Business Studies lecture from Seb from which we all learnt a lot of knowledge and lost a few fried brain cells, as this lecture included some maths (need I say more).We spent the whole of Friday and the morning of Saturday re-painting the special needs classroom at Sacred Heart School and between Nola and Seb, I got drenched in sugar soap during the preparation stages, Nola became a peach spotted painter with a roller, and Seb (who knows how) got half of his shirt drenched in sugar soap and paint everywhere.On Friday evening, Lisa managed to organize a surprise farewell party for Seb as we are his final intake. It must have been a good evening as around midnight we were rudely awakened from our peaceful slumber by a cats chorus…known as karaoke.. Seb’s favourite!